L'essence précède l'existence
by Celesma
Summary: Dean's thoughts after killing Amy Pond. Spoilers up to the beginning of S07, brief allusions to Destiel.


**L'essence précède l'existence**

In his dreams, he still sees her face.

She was a pretty, young single mother who called herself Amy Pond. He didn't know what her real name was, although he figured that wasn't supposed to matter to him. What _did_ matter was that she was a kitsune – a monster – and that she had killed three people.

And so, he'd killed her.

When he'd done the deed – felt the twist of the knife as it plunged into soft flesh, watched her eyes flash with an equally soft (almost knowing) surprise that translated into an animalistic narrowing of her pupils – he had half-expected her body to burst into flames, or for her to explode into bloody chunks, or for some terrible black thing to come tunneling up her throat, or – you know – _something._

Something that a monster that'd just been

_(murdered)_

ganked would do.

Instead she had remained impossibly, beautifully human, blood pooling out in widening circles around the stab wound in her chest, staining her absurdly ordinary-looking shirt. He gently laid her body out on the bed, not knowing what else to do, feeling as if he were watching the scene unfold outside of himself. For a moment he had stood there, just looking at her.

And naturally – because Dean Winchester understands now that he's just a tool, a useful scalpel in the anguished and imprecise surgery of monster extermination, or maybe just an asshole – her son had appeared in the doorway. For one horrible moment he considered killing the kid too, before his soul pushed back in horrified protest.

"You ever kill anyone?" he asked, inwardly sighing in relief as the kid shook his head no.

"The only person I'm gonna kill is you," he added, glowering.

Fair enough.

He's been in this profession long enough to know that he's not supposed to feel guilty – after all, Dad wouldn't have, right? – but he does anyway.

He has tortured souls in hell, helped unleash the Apocalypse, mowed down innocent people in order to get to the demons possessing their bodies; but this feels like his worst crime yet.

It's the reason for his renewed interest in getting wasted these past few weeks. The reason that he lashes out at Sam for no apparent reason at all. Yesterday Sam had visited the local supermarket in the dingy little shitkicking town they'd been hiding out in, trying to avoid the feds, and (as per usual) he had brought back a slice of apple cake instead of the apple pie Dean had requested. Although his excuse had been a perfectly good one – "Sorry, Dean, they were all out of pie. But it's got apple in it, so close enough, right?" – the older Winchester had launched into a brief tirade, ending with the words _"How goddamn hard is it to just do what you're told without there being some kind of issue?!"_

Sam had retreated away with an expression of hurt astonishment, but before he could once more undertake the annoying task of picking his brother's brain for answers, or interrogating him about the empty bottles, Dean had locked himself in the bathroom and taken a forty-minute shower.

Sam doesn't know anything, of course.

Because sometimes in his dreams, the woman's features change, resolve into those of his little brother; and suddenly it is _Sam's_ eyes that dim with a fading, dying _(yellow) _light, _Sam's _face that registers dull surprise, _Sam's_ body that settles into a slow repose on the cheap motel bed.

Sam, the

_(freak)_

beloved little brother,

_(demon lover)_

incurable nerd,

_(soulless killer)_

gentle pushover,

_(Lucifer's bitch)_

Dean's best friend.

On the tail end of these mutated nightmares, he hears an all-too familiar voice giving all-too familiar orders, its gruff tenor twisted into a mockery of parental compassion

_(Dean, take care of Sammy)_

It's not that Sam is the only family to have betrayed him: oh, no. Every single demon that wanted to taunt Dean with his "daddy issues" had it exactly right. John Winchester was a man with a singular obsession, one that didn't include being a good father to his two sons – he knows that now, even though it had taken years for him to see it and grow disgusted (with John, yes, but mostly with himself, for his own weak blindness and need). It was so bad that Sam's happiest memories didn't even involve his father and brother.

Castiel was the final nail in the coffin. The last few years had seen the two of them growing closer – Dean had felt comfortable with him in a way he hadn't with his own brother, and at the same time it hadn't seemed like a familial connection at all, it had seemed _deeper_ than that; maybe it was in the way Cas looked at him sometimes, with that inquisitive (almost innocent) tilt of his head and pursing of his lips, or the way he sometimes touched Dean's hand for no reason, his fingers wandering over his skin like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, and Dean had let him even though he didn't know why – but then Cas had turned on him, betrayed him. Reminded him that there were no such thing as angels: only dicks with wings.

He had looked straight at him and said: "You're not my family."

And now Cas was dead. Dead by his own goddamn hand. Dead by his own bad choices.

_That's because there aren't any choices to make. __**Team Free Will? **What a fucking crock._

Those times when he's forced to recall the fallen angel, the touches and the looks and the weird sort of longing that he used to reserve for Lisa, he can empty an entire bottle in the course of a half-hour.

He's not a family man by any stretch of the imagination. He'd tried that once already, and it hadn't worked. Had gone horribly, horriby wrong, in fact.

He's a hunter. Hunters kill monsters.

It's the one thing that he knows makes sense. That he'll _make_ make sense.

And even in his deepest drunken stupor, the words echo in his head again

_(Dean, take care of Sammy)_

Maybe the only reason he doesn't drop Sammy is because – miserable and distrustful as he is – he can't bear being alone. Because Sam is his brother, and all he's got left. Who the hell knows?

In the end, the only other thing he really knows for sure is what he tells the woman in the final seconds before he kills her, before the knife twists into her painfully vulnerable, painfully _human_ heart:

"We are... what we are."

And nothing else.

* * *

_The End_


End file.
